Early to Rise Experience Day 1…

If you’re a true MIP blogstalker, you know that I select a book each month and then review it at the end of the month. I even give you my “reading plan” for how I intend to conquer the entirety of that book so you can join in. This might be one worth joining in on, even if you only do it just to watch me squirm and understand why I’m squirming. Go here to join in.

Why am I squirming? Because this book, The Early to Rise Experience, is demanding that I get up ridiculously early. My serious MIP blogstalkers also know that I am anything but an early “riser.” In fact I adore my night owl tendencies. But, I do admit that being such is at odds with the operation of rest of the world. And thus, it can cause me lots of difficulty. So, I’m going to try to be a good girl and try to overcome this tendency of mine. I’m NOT optimistic that this will stick for life, but I thought you might find it entertaining to watch me squirm.

If you want to try the experiment with me, then feel free to comment at the bottom of my posts. Each one will tell you what day I’m on (You’ll quickly note, probably, that I’m not successful at rising early each day!) and then my journal thoughts about this process. I’ll probably have to severely edit my journal thoughts, since I’m not sure I’m even thinking actual English words until my 2nd cup of coffee, and if I am, they are probably words that don’t exactly match up with the Christian way of life I supposedly espouse.

It occurs to me that the acronym (I adore acronyms–at one point in my life I was actually paid to come up with them. Go figure!) for the Early to Rise Experience is ETRE, which just happens to be the French word for “to be.” That is the point of this experiment, supposedly…to just be and take time out for me. I’m smiling that it’s a French word, because when forced to take French in college at 7:30 am in the dark wintertime of Indiana (I might also mention that it was usually accompanied by snow, ice, huge winds and severe cold.), I often muttered to myself (on the way to class) that I couldn’t speak intelligent English at 7:30 am, let alone conversational French. Of course, since I couldn’t recognize anything coming out of my mouth at that hour as English, perhaps I was speaking French, after all.

So, here are my “French thoughts” for Day 1 of ETRE:

Waking Time: 5:30 am How I Feel: Terrible

Very sleepy. Had to take lots of migraine meds and allergy meds last night and that doesn’t help. But…I’m up. Amazing. And I had at least one intelligent thought: Write about my impressions of waking up early to use in my blog (I am already questioning if that is really intelligent.). Other than that, I’m not impressed.

I hoped to wake up at 4 am, but the hubby came home at 11 pm from the airport and as a result of him making noise, I couldn’t sleep until around midnight. I set 8 alarms (No, seriously…8!), but shut off the 4 earliest ones because of going to be at a late hour. One didn’t go off because I set it for the wrong day. So, alarm # 6 actually got me up. Maybe I need to set 11 alarms?

I did like taking my bath last night. Well, actually my shower. I think doing yoga stretches the night before might help me sleep. Other than that, I doubt I keep this up. Not because I don’t want to, but because my migraines will become chronic (A lack of sleep is one of my triggers for migraines.) and will force me to return to my night owl tendencies. I actually shed tears last night about how much my body’s physical limitations keep me from achieving what I want to accomplish. It’s like living in prison.

I’d love to write more, but my mind is now a blank. I’m in shock that I’ve written this much. I’m in shock that I can remember English at this hour….I NEED COFFEE and the morning person hubby had better not talk to me for at least 4 hours if he wants a smiling, affectionate wife.